Monitoring air quality is of great importance in protecting against adverse health effects and also damage to farm crops such as vineyards. Indeed, there is an unmet need to provide individuals with personalized and actionable information regarding their exposure to allergens. Pollen exposure information may be considered actionable if it aids a user and associated health care providers in diagnosing the type of allergens inducing allergic reactions. Allergen exposure information is also actionable if it enables the user to better avoid allergen exposure. Information is also actionable information if it leads to more effective use of medication or therapy to reduce or eliminate allergic reactions and associated symptoms. One particularly important mechanism for allergen exposure is the inhalation of airborne allergens. Hence actionable information regarding airborne allergen exposure is of particular interest.
Airborne allergens include tree, grass and weed pollens, mold spores, cat or dog dander, as well as particulates associated with dust mites. Troublesome airborne allergens typically are sufficiently small to be easily transported some distance by air currents or wind before settling out of the air. Typically this means small particle sizes that are difficult to see with the naked eye. Airborne allergens are typically an invisible threat to an individuals' well-being.
Similarly, farms and vineyards can suffer from certain types of mold as winds can carry mold spores for many miles. Depending on climatic conditions, losses for vineyards may range from about 15 percent to about 40 percent or more of the harvest. The lost in harvest results in lost revenue, profit, and jobs. There is a need to cost-effectively and rapidly detect damaging mold spores so that control and mitigation measures can be quickly developed and deployed to save a harvest. Likewise, there remains an unmet need to provide individuals with personalized, prompt and actionable information regarding their exposure to allergens.